Wage Earning and Education eBook

THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING

The report maintains that up to the end of the compulsory
attendance period school training preparatory to entering
the printing trades must be of the most general sort,
due to the fact that in the average elementary school
the number of boys who are likely to become printers
is too small to form special classes. For example,
in an elementary school of 1,000 pupils the number
of boys 12 years old and over to whom instruction
in printing would be of value from the standpoint of
future vocational utility, would probably not exceed
two. While admitting the advantages of the junior
high school for the purposes of vocational training,
the report points out that even in a school where
only pupils of the upper grades are admitted, the number
who are likely to become printers is still too small
to warrant special instruction. In a junior high
school of 1,000 pupils not more than nine boys are
likely to become printers.

The report recommends a general industrial course
during the junior high school period. What the
boys need at this time is practice in the application
of mathematics, drawing, and elementary science to
industrial problems. Shop equipment should be
selected with this object in mind. It is doubtful
whether it should include a printing shop, for while
such a shop would be useful to the few boys who will
become printers, it would be of little value in training
for other industries. The report suggests as
subjects which should be included in the general industrial
course practice in handling and assembling machinery,
the study of color harmony, and the principles of design
in connection with the work in drawing, the use of
printing shop problems in applied mathematics, and
thorough instruction in spelling, punctuation, and
the division of words. It also recommends the
course of industrial information referred to in previous
chapters.

The establishment of a two year printing course in
a separate vocational school is recommended to meet
the need for specialized instruction from the end
of the compulsory period to the apprentice entering
age. The printing trades are relatively small
and it is only by concentrating in a single school
plant all the boys who may wish to enter them that
specialized training can be made practicable.
In this way it would be possible to secure classes
of from 60 to 100 boys each for such trades as composition
and presswork. The report emphasizes the need
for instruction in trade theory as against practice
on specific operations. It points out that the
boys will have plenty of opportunity after they go
to work to acquire speed and manual skill, while they
have little chance, under modern shop conditions, to
obtain an understanding of the relation of drawing,
physics, chemistry, mathematics, and art to their
work.